this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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Disney has been using Steamboat Willy in the beginning credits of their shows/movies for a while now. They are attempting to make it a Trademark (since the copyright wouldn't be extended further). Since Trademarks must be defended, Disney will likely start suing anyone using Steamboat Willy on grounds of Trademark violation.
IP law is literally holding humanity back from progress its so infuriating. It was created with the good intentions for people to be able to profit from their inventions and creativity, but has been bastardized by corporations to have strangleholds on innovations that could benefit all of humanity yet profit matters more than people in this Capitalist hell scape.
I believe copyright was originally a means of censorship to allow the state (monarchs and the church) to control what could be published. It was originally introduced because of the printing press which resulted in much easier distribution of dissenting opinions. It was later reformed into something much more reasonable with the intention of promoting the creation of literature, but is now just a tool to prevent people from having any semblance of ownership. It needs major reform.
Particularly, the abilities for the copyright holder to restrict what can be done with the IP and restrictions strictly non-commercial use. For example, I don’t believe it should be legal for the copyright holder to restrict people from viewing a copyrighted work together by streaming it similar to if they were in the same room in a non-commercial setting.
Of corporations are people, why not use the guillotine?
Trademarks only matter if the intention or effect is to impersonate the business. If you started makeing feature length movies and used Steamboat Willy in the opening to trick customers into thinking it was a Disney movie they might be able to sue, but otherwise trademark doesn’t work that way.
You're right. But they don't need to win the legal battle. They just need you to give up (lose) the legal fight. If enough people give up, the rest will stop fighting, and Disney wins the war. They're rich enough and greedy enough that it can work.
Again, given there is no basis in law for trademark to work that way, Disney would be on the hook for all legal fees and everyone involved would know it. Throwing money at lawyers in hopes of dragong things out into a settlement doesn’t work when there isn’t any question of who will win.
I hope you're right. I guess I just don't have trust in the legal systems anymore.